The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, better known as LABI, recently published the Louisiana Legislature Scorecard 2017. This is always a good way to figure out how your legislators have been voting on key issues of importance to the economy. Whether it’s for criminal justice, taxes, or budgetary issues, the LABI Scorecard tracks it all.

Not sure who your legislators are? That’s no problem. Simply plug your address into the Who Are My Legislators? tool and you’ll be shown who your representatives at the Capitol are.

Major congratulations are in order for the legislators who attained perfect scores. That list includes valuable policy makers like:

Rep. Mark Abraham

Rep. Taylor Barras

Rep. Robert Billiot

Rep. Stuart Bishop

Rep. Patrick Connick

Rep. Mike Danahay

Rep. Phillip Devillier

Rep. Julie Emerson

Rep. Tanner Magee

Rep. Blake Miguez

Rep. Greg Miller

Rep. John Stefanski

Rep. Polly Thomas

Rep. Jerome Zeringue

Sen. Bret Allain

Thanks to all these wonderful legislators for their policymaking courage and consistency!

Over the course of a number of years, Louisiana has captured a ranking no state should want. #1 in terms of per capita incarceration of its citizens. This statistics has been the basis for many articles over the last few years and thankfully we may soon see the ranking slip. This is due to the efforts of a bipartisan coalition focused on ensuring Louisiana’s criminal justice system is geared towards being “Smart on Crime”. Elaine Ellerbe at Louisiana Right on Crime explains it well.

The reforms are expected to reduce the overall prison population by 10% with savings in the $262 million range over the next ten years. 70% of the realized savings –estimated at $184 million—will be reinvested into evidence based programs and policies that reduce recidivism and better support victims of crime. Additionally, the community supervision population is projected to decrease by 12%, allowing probation and parole caseloads to be more manageable for law enforcement officers and more effective in rehabilitating released offenders.

The passage of these criminal justice reforms was made possible thanks to a vastly diverse group of bi-partisan stakeholders. The state saw everyone from law enforcement and court practitioners, to prison and probation & parole agencies – even business, community, and faith leaders – all come together to advocate for reforms that are smart on crime.

This is a good summation of the issue. Read it in full. Louisiana will be making improvements as these laws come into effect, but we still have a long way to go. Want to keep up with the latest goings-on concerning criminal justice reform efforts in Louisiana? Check out Smart On Crime – Louisiana.

It was a momentous day for criminal justice reform in Louisiana and for the Pelican Institute. The full criminal justice reform package passed the Louisiana legislature, which was the culmination of Kevin Kane’s work. Kevin Kane was commemorated and memorialized in a sense after the legislation passed. Rep. Walt Leger, a Democratic legislator, spoke kindly of Mr. Kane and his work. You can see the clip below.

In total, the Pew Institute has estimated the implementation of the bills will reduce the state’s prison population by 10 percent over the next decade. The savings the state will generate for no longer housing those inmates is projected to be $262 million, of which 70 percent has been obligated for programs to rehabilitate offenders and support victims.

Most significantly, the package of bills aims to overhaul sentencing in the state criminal codes. The package will reduce mandatory minimums, trim sentences and give some inmates access to parole eligibility sooner. It creates a medical furlough program, which allows the sickest inmates to temporarily receive treatment off site, and be eligible for Medicaid, which saves the state on medical costs. The package overhauls drug sentencing, allowing lighter sentences based on weights, and streamlines the state’s many incongruous theft penalties. One bill in the package will limit how often juvenile offenders can receive life without parole sentences.

The measure also expands prison alternatives, like drug court, and expand safety nets for people getting out of jail and returning to their communities, by reducing their financial burdens and helping them have better access to jobs. Another bill will help improve the way victims are notified when offenders have parole hearings or are released.

You can read more about the passage of the package here. The criminal justice reform package had support from Democrats, Republicans, and even the Independent members of the legislature. It was a reversal of years of poor criminal justice and sentencing policy as well as an endorsement of years of effort by The Pelican Institute’s former President, Kevin Kane, who died late last year. There was even a bill put forth and adopted, sponsored by two Democrats, commending Kevin Kane for his work on this issue. You can read it here.

Governor Rightly Takes Tax Increases Off the Table for Upcoming Special Session

A new report, Addressing Louisiana’s Budget Shortfall: Strategies for Growth, released today by the Pelican Institute, Louisiana’s premier voice for free markets, found that proposals to raise taxes to finance more state government spending will hinder economic activity and growth. The report is particularly timely, given Governor John Bel Edwards’ call for a special session, in which he has rightly taken tax increases off the table.

The report, produced in partnership with The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center, determined that eliminating the corporate income tax and replacing it with a revenue neutral sales tax increase creates jobs, grows the economy and increases tax revenue.

“As Louisiana policymakers continue to explore remedies for revenue shortfalls, this report clearly shows that raising taxes to finance more government spending will hinder economic activity and growth,” said Abhay Patel, acting executive director for the Pelican Institute. “Unfortunately, Louisiana has routinely voted to raise taxes in order to balance the budget, while tax reform proposals have been rejected. It is now clear, that to resolve its perennial budget crisis, we must adopt a more permanent tax and spending structure that fosters real and sustained economic growth.”

Orphe Pierre Divounguy, the lead economist with Buckeye’s Economic Research Center and the lead author on the report, said, “Rather than pursue revenues through increasing the tax burden on citizens, Louisiana would be better served by reducing or eliminating corporate taxes, and creating incentives for increasing investment, and job creation across the state. Eliminating Louisiana’s corporate income and franchise taxes offer the best path for spurring economic growth and eliminating some sales tax exemptions would have the least harmful effect on the state’s gross domestic product while still raising additional tax revenue.”

Other Key Findings:

Eliminating the corporate income tax is the most pro-growth policy and would generate more than 11,000 jobs in the first two years, and boost the state gross domestic product by almost $1 billion dollars.

While tax base broadening is good economic policy, it only works when it is offset by tax rate reductions, otherwise it is a tax increase which will reduce consumption and investment.

The report used a dynamic scoring model, developed by economists at Buckeye’s Economic Research Center, to test more than a dozen possible changes to Louisiana’s tax policy and show their effects on gross domestic product, jobs creation or loss, and revenue.

The report was authored by Orphe Pierre Divounguy, PhD, the senior economist at Buckeye’s Economic Research Center; Rea S. Hederman Jr., who oversees the work of the Economic Research Center and serves as Executive Vice President at the Buckeye Institute; Bryce Hill; and Lukas Spitzwieser.

Stephen Waguespack is the current President of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, better known around the state as LABI. It is the state’s Chamber of Commerce organization. Today, Stephen Waguespack has a Guest Column in The Advocate which makes the case that lawmakers should support the criminal justice reform compromise being proposed in the Louisiana legislature.

Over the next decade, the package in its current form would save the state $262 million and reinvest 70 percent of the savings — more than $183 million — into programs that would rehabilitate inmates with drug treatment and job training, as well as aid the victims of crime.

These reforms are a compromise product of successful negotiations between law enforcement, legislative leaders and other state officials. This package enjoys broad support from business groups like the one I am proud to represent, the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, which represents more than 2,200 businesses and 324,000 employees in Louisiana. From our point of view, the status quo is unacceptable and has damaged our state, our people, and our economy. Reform is definitely needed.

He goes on to discuss the considerable costs of how Louisiana currently runs its criminal justice system and the fallout we’ve seen from that both in terms of economics and public safety.

There is a solid case to be made from a business perspective for the criminal justice reform efforts in Louisiana. That is why Jay Lapeyre of Laitram LLC and John Finan of Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System are featured in this video outlining the business case for criminal justice reform and justice reinvestment in Louisiana.

If you liked this video, there are many more resources to be found at Smart On Crime Louisiana’s website.

Today, Smart on Crime Louisiana, Right On Crime, and the Pelican Institute for Public Policy released a new video making the business case for criminal justice reform in Louisiana. The video features state business leaders James M. “Jay” Lapeyre Jr. and John Finan Jr. and is being heavily promoted online throughout Louisiana.

As the Legislature debates the recommendations of the bipartisan Louisiana Justice Reinvestment Task Force, Lapeyre and Finan are urging lawmakers to approve the data-driven reform package that would save the state $300 million over a 10-year period while improving public safety.

“This is a conservative-led reform and business organizations are committed to it,” Lapeyre says in the video.

“We’re spending scarce dollars that we really don’t have on a system that is ineffective and inefficient,” explains Finan. “We’re learning from the experience of our neighboring states and the facts are undeniable.”

A number of Louisiana’s Southern neighbors continue to reap the financial and public safety benefits of criminal justice reform. Since passing reforms in 2010, South Carolina’s imprisonment and crime rate have fallen by 16 percent. Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Mississippi have experienced similar results.

“The important thing is to stay the course and do what’s right for Louisiana—not worry about the political opposition,” says Lapeyre.

Formed in 2014, Smart on Crime Louisiana is a coalition of Louisiana business leaders and conservative organizations, including Right on Crime Louisiana. Right on Crime is a national initiative that has transformed the debate on criminal justice reform in 34 states and advocated for data-driven, fiscally-sound justice policies in the Pelican State. The Pelican Institute is a nonpartisan research and educational organization—a think tank—and the leading voice for free markets in Louisiana.

Applying a destination-based cash flow tax—better known as a “border-adjustment tax,” or BAT—to the import of reinsurance will cost Louisiana consumers an additional $1.11 billion in higher property-casualty insurance premiums over the next decade, according to a new report published jointly by the R Street Institute and the Pelican Institute.

The full report can be found here. The Border Adjustment Tax has been talked about a great deal in Washington D.C. in recent months and has the support of many Republicans and Democrats alike. However, this study shows how it will hurt average consumers as well as throwing the insurance market in Louisiana into disarray.

Baton Rouge, LA – The Pelican Institute, Louisiana’s premier voice for free markets, today applauded the decision to withdraw the commercial activity tax (CAT) from consideration. The CAT would have been devastating to the state’s economy.

The Pelican Institute joined with our partners at The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center to provide policymakers with a timely analysis of the disastrous effects the CAT would have on Louisiana. Today, the right decision was made for the state’s future and for its citizens, and we are gratified that our warnings of the disastrous impact the CAT would have had were heeded. The proposed commercial activity tax would have led to significant job loss for Louisiana, higher prices for consumers, and would have hurt average citizens the most,” said Abhay Patel, acting Executive Director for the Pelican Institute.

The Pelican Institute will release a detailed study produced in partnership with The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center later this week. The Buckeye Institute employs a more reliable, dynamic scoring model to test more than a dozen possible changes to Louisiana’s tax policy and show their effects on gross domestic product, jobs creation or loss, and revenue. The new study found that the CAT proposal would have led to the loss of more than 11,000 existing and potential Louisiana jobs in its first year alone and a decline in the state’s economy of more than $100 million.

“We in Ohio have seen the negative impact the CAT can have, and as I said when Louisiana’s proposal was unveiled, it is unclear why any state would want to import this type of plan,” said Robert Alt, President and Chief Executive Officer at The Buckeye Institute. “There is a reason why only five states continue to impose this type of tax burden and why two of those five – Texas and Virginia – are looking to eliminate it.”

Orphe Pierre Divounguy, the lead economist with Buckeye’s Economic Research Center and the lead author on the forthcoming report said, “Given the negative impact on wages, and employment prospects, the CAT would have done more harm to Louisiana’s economy and its citizens than good. The static scoring used by Louisiana’s Department of Revenue does not take into account how the real world reacts to changes in tax policy and overestimates revenues that can be raised.”

The Pelican Institute is a nonpartisan research and educational organization and the leading voice for free markets in Louisiana. The Institute’s mission is to conduct scholarly research and analysis that advances sound policies based on free enterprise, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government.

The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center is a leading research center that provides timely data-driven research to policymakers across the country to inform decisions on tax, economic, healthcare, and other major public policy issues.